1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to water sports boards including surfboards, body boards and sail boards. More particularly, this invention describes water sports boards having an improved construction rendering them light, strong and durable, while at the same time more versatile and safer than currently available water sports boards.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Board-shaped riding vehicles have long been a part of water recreation, first as surfboards, and later as sail boards (sometimes referred to as windsurf boards) and body boards (also known as boogie boards). Surfboards were traditionally stiff and heavy, with hard exterior surfaces. In recent years, surf and sail board manufacturers have utilized synthetic materials to make light weight boards. Body boards are normally constructed from soft foam materials.
Whereas the technique of using synthetic materials to make light weight boards is now well known and understood, presently available light weight boards tend to be stiff, fragile and expensive. The hard outer skin encountered on conventional surf and windsurf boards resist flexing, causing the lightweight boards to break down rapidly under the repeated bending and twisting forces encountered in water sports. A primary object of the present invention is to provide a water sports board that is very light and at the same time strong and durable.
Most available body boards have a continuous structure formed from a soft foam product. The soft feature of the body boards makes them safe and comfortable to use, but lacks the stiffness necessary to enable the boards to withstand intense forces encountered in surfing and board sailing. A further objective of the present invention is to provide a water sports board having the strength and stiffness necessary to counteract the intense forces encountered in surfing and board sailing and, at the same time, a soft exterior rendering the boards comfortable to ride, safer to use, and more durable.
Currently available surf and sail boards generally have light density cores covered by a hard brittle skin. The resulting boards are light weight but substantially rigid. Substantially rigid boards are fragile, they have limited maneuverability, and are less versatile compared with flexible water sports boards. Substantially flexible boards, like boogie boards, fail to perform under the more significant forces encountered in many water sports. A third objective of the present invention is to provide a water sports board which allows for controlled or limited flexibility. The flexibility promotes maneuverability, but because the flexibility is controlled, the board maintains its designed form under significant pressure and after multiple uses.